Viral video causes push for no plastic straw pledge

According to Save Our Shores, plastic straws make the top ten list of littered items found during coastal cleanups. Marine life advocates say it’s the plastic straws that are dangerous for sea animals. A video has gone viral this month, where researchers found a plastic straw lodged up a sea turtles nostril in Costa Rica. After eight painful minutes the crew was able to pull the straw out.

“It’s infuriating and it’s affected alot of people so in one hand, I’m thinking if that’s what it took to see that people realized that, that is not what is needed for them to drink a drink out of a straw,” said the founder of Last Plastic Straw, Jackie Nunez.

Nunez said while the video was upsetting she hopes it’ll help convince people to make a change. She pointed out that there are alternatives to plastic straws, like using a stainless steel one and she mentioned they even make straws out of bamboo. Nunez volunteers with Save Our Shores, a group that cleans up beaches in Monterey and Santa Cruz County. The organization said they pick up almost 5,000 plastic straws off the Central Coast beaches every year. The weekly clean-ups help, but no matter how many plastic straws they pick up, it’s a never-ending battle as long as businesses continue using them.

Over in Moss Landing, The Haute Enchilada restaurant took the “No Plastic Pledge,” and only offers paper straws upon request.

“Half the people that find a straw in their drink take it out before they even taste their drink so we use far less straws then we ever have before so it really has, the cost is very justifiable,” said Haute Enchilada owner, Kim Solano.

Solano said paper straws aren’t cheap. They cost about ten times as much as the plastic variety, but after watching the disturbing turtle video she said spending the extra money is worth it. If you’d like to take the No Plastic Pledge go to plasticpollutioncoalition.org.